Literature


Beyond Monet: The Artful Science of Instructional Integration
Barrie Bennett and Carol Rolheiser
The authors discuss instructional intelligence which they define as "having the knowledge of learning necessary to create a meaningful and powerful learning environment". This book is useful in many different ways for creating engagement within the learner.

Calculus: The Easy Way
Douglas Downing
This is an introductory calculus book that presents the material in the form of a fantasy novel.

How Intelligence Happens
John Duncan
A neuroscientist's journey into the mind in an attempt to learn more about how our brains work and how it affects our behaviours and our intelligences.

How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms
Carol Ann Tomlinson
This is the next step in the natural progression of a teacher's skill set. Once a teacher has learned to effectively manage their classroom, and is able to make engaging lessons, he/she must be able to cater to the different levels of skills within the classroom.

Millenials Rising: The Next Great Generation
Neil Howe and William Strauss
This book illustrates the differences between the teenagers of the current generation and those of generations past. As teachers, we tend to want to teach the way we learn best, but as good teachers we should teach the way our students learn best.

Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)
Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson
An explanation of how it is in our nature to not accept responsibility.

Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons (Revised and Updated)
Howard Gardner
This book discusses the differences in the types of intelligences and how each of them is different. Gardner points out that just because a student is really skilled at mathematics, he/she is not necessarily more intelligent than a student who has demonstrates a different type of intelligence. Gardner gains credibility as he updates his own research correcting some of his older beliefs.

The Bully, The Bullied, and the Bystander
Barbara Coloroso
An analysis of the three roles involved in most bullying scenarios. The bully, who gets what they want from their victim the bullied, who is picked on and victimized by either an individual or a group, and the bystander, who watches it all go down but remains silent. It gives practical guidance to educators on how to handle and deal with bullying.

The First Days of School: How to be an Effective Teacher
Harry and Rosemary Wong
This book deals with practical classroom management techniques. It shows that the most important time in a classroom is the first week where the students and the teacher get to know one another. It gives you practical techniques about everyday situations and how to handle them. Everything from seating plans to how to organize groups to how to assess a student effectively is included. If purchased new, it comes with an hour-long DVD instructional video.

The Motivation Breakthrough: 6 Secrets to Turning On the Tuned-Out Child
Richard Lavoie
Similar to Alfie Kohn's writings, Richard Lavoie discusses the differences between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Whereas Kohn tends to spend more time explaining why extrinsic motivation doesn't work the way we think it does, Lavoie's book discusses the types of intrinsic motivation that exists in each student and how to use those to effectively engage them.

Unconditional Parenting
Alfie Kohn
Although not directly about teaching, this book does offer a lot of insight into the differences between what we intend and what a child perceives. Also, as we learned in Contemporary Educational Practices, as teachers we are bound by law to give the same care to a student that a parent would give. Therefore, a parenting book may come in handy.



Programs



Inspiration

http://www.inspiration.com/
This software allows one to create visual displays such as flow charts and concept maps. Unfortunately there is only a free 30 day trial.


Time Left

Time Left is a handy program that gives stopwatch and timer countdowns on the desktop. You can give the counters names so you know what they are referring to. You could put this on-screen to show the students how much time is left in the current activity. This is useful if there is no access to the internet. The free version only allows one of each type of clock to run simultaneously.
http://www.timeleft.info/




Web-Based Resources


arcademicskillbuilder


Citation Machine

http://citationmachine.net/
Citation Machine is an online tool which takes the information you give it and creates the appropriate citation based on your requirements. Once the citation is created the user just copy and pastes it into the document.
It provides citations in:
  • APA (6th Edition)
  • MLA (7th Edition)
  • Chicago
  • Turabian

Delicious - Social Bookmarking

http://www.delicious.com/
This is an online bookmarking website. The purpose of this is that you can now have your bookmarks accessible on any computer you use.

Evernote

http://www.evernote.com/
An online notebook that is similar to Microsoft's OneNote. It allows you to take pictures, notes, screenshots and more and add them to the notebook. The files can be organized any way the user wants.
  • version available for Blackberry

Prezi

http://prezi.com/
Prezi is a presentation tool that is a more fluid and creative alternative to a PowerPoint Slideshow.

Rubric Builder


http://www.rubricbuilder.on.ca/
11995-5C99A
An online rubric creation device that has most curriculum documents built in for easy selection.


Simplenote

http://simplenoteapp.com/
An online notebook that is similar to Evernote.